A+E Interactive » Nixhttp://blogs.mercurynews.com/aei
Bay Area Arts and Entertainment BlogMon, 30 Mar 2015 12:40:46 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1Hands on with inFamous 2 and thoughts on its user-generated contenthttp://blogs.mercurynews.com/aei/2011/03/07/infamous-2-hands-on-preview/
http://blogs.mercurynews.com/aei/2011/03/07/infamous-2-hands-on-preview/#commentsTue, 08 Mar 2011 00:45:23 +0000Gieson Cachohttp://blogs.mercurynews.com/aei/?p=21042
I always associate inFamous with GDC. At GDC 2009, I first played the game and interviewed Sucker Punch co-founder Brian Fleming. Now two years later, I’m playing the sequel and getting an overview of its new feature — user-generated levels.… Continue Reading →]]>
I always associate inFamous with GDC. At GDC 2009, I first played the game and interviewed Sucker Punch co-founder Brian Fleming. Now two years later, I’m playing the sequel and getting an overview of its new feature -- user-generated levels. It’s an interesting evolution for a game that’s prided itself on being a super hero title built from the ground up as a video game.
When I first played inFamous 2, what struck me the most were the visuals. As much as I liked the first game, it was drab, post-apocalyptic and morose. Suffice to say, it was overwhelmingly dark. On the other hand, the sequel is the opposite. With architecture inspired by New Orleans, the new locale, New Marais, is bright, lustrous and distinct with residents milling about the street and structures that echo the French Quarter.
Along with the new setting, Cole MacGrath sports some new moves and a weapon called the Amp. The protagonist wields it like a baseball bat, and it seems like it allows him to perform little flourishes in combat. After pressing the square button a few times, a meter toward the left charges up and when it hits the limit, players can press the triangle button to perform a slow-motion power move.
It also seems as though Cole is less alone in this campaign. In the bad and good missions I sampled, Cole was accompanied by either cops or a new ally named Nix. In the good mission, Zeke asks Cole to help out some officers captured by an evil militia. If he frees them, the cops help him on his attack on a run-down plantation. The bad mission involves Nix, another superhuman who is imbued with the power of fire. She urges Cole to capture a train and ram it through the front gates of the site.
Although it feels good to help others, it’s more entertaining to beat up anyone who opposes you, capture a street car and shooting electricity into it so that it flies down the tracks and into a militia base. It’s an explosive entrance that leave a huge chunk of enemies dead. Better yet in the bad mission, you have Nix by your side, and together you can more quickly eliminate the militia. Nix, which was AI-controlled, can grab enemies with her fire power and Cole can finish them off with a vicious swing of the Amp. During other moments, she’ll evaporate into thin air and reappear elsewhere taking out foes. Sucker Punch says she’s not necessarily evil, but more hedonistic and chaotic meanwhile Cole’s old friend Zeke is the lawful good person.
As you pound bad guys and choose whether to restrain them or bioleach their energy, players will discover they have a few other powers. There’s now an Ionic Tornado that players can whip out by pressing the down arrow on the D-pad. Also the environments seem more destructable than before with exploding gas tanks and wooden debris.
No matter which side you play though, both missions end the same way. Cole is trying to get to the plantation because a character named Kuo is there, and she is a superhuman like he is. Beating the demo unlocks an interesting cut-scene that shows Cole may have awakened something else during his rescue attempt.
That demo was fine and good, but the bigger news from inFamous 2 was the unexpected announcement of user-generated content. At first, I thought it was odd addition. What can players really do with that in an open-world, super-hero game. But seeing it in action, I have to admit the concept looked like it held some value.
The user-generated content works similarly to LittleBigPlanet with a thermometer that marks how much stuff you can add to a scenario. Meanwhile, actual mission building is done in enclosed parts of the New Maris. That means the more you play through inFamous 2, the more unique areas you can access for your levels.
As for mission design, it can be anything from a simple rooftop race where Cole has to glide across power lines and go through circles to siege-type missions, where he has to defend himself from an army of militiamen. There’s even an surreal target practice mode, where Cole has to shoot targets that float eerily in space.
I asked one of the developers to make me a level, and he did so in a few minutes. He asked what I wanted and I said give me an explosion. I told him I didn’t want just any blast. I wanted full-scale Michael Bay-Jerry Bruckheimer spectacle, and he responded by changing the gravity for enemies and putting some gas cans, bombs and propane tanks next to each other. Then he fired at it with a simple electric blast and the scene created a chain reaction like a Rube Goldberg machine made out of TNT. It was nifty.
And it’ll sure be interesting to see what players come up with when a limited public beta is held in early April. Infamous 2 itself is set for release June 7.]]>http://blogs.mercurynews.com/aei/2011/03/07/infamous-2-hands-on-preview/feed/1inFamous 2inFamous 2inFamous 2inFamous 2inFamous 2